Summary

The Adventures of a Solitary Soul - H. J. Sharp

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This brings us to the next centre of gravity, Mi

But there is more. There is also some DNA in the cell body which maintains the integrity of the cell body itself. There is now good evidence that the beginning of organic life on Earth was around 3,000,000,000 years ago when the prokaryotic unicells, the monera, similar to the blue green algae of today, became established. There was only sufficient DNA in these cells to enable them to reproduce by division with little to ensure evolution to more complex forms. At around the same time primitive bacteria evolved. These had within them DNA of greater complexity and this enabled them to evolve many different forms and so adapt to the changing environmental conditions of this time. They eventually developed photosynthesis as a means of creating energy from sunlight.

Then around 1,000,000,000 years ago some of these bacteria appear to have invaded some of the monera to form a symbiotic binary organism. This was the arrival of the nucleate cells, the eukaryotic unicells. From this beginning evolved the multicellular organisms, plants and animals, once 3,000,000,000 years of activity by these early forms of life had changed the oxygen/carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere so it was more amenable to the survival of multicellular organisms.

It is now accepted that the whole of organic life is based on organisms which are symbiotic combinations. I would suggest that this same pattern of relationship is reflected in the psyche with its outer so called conscious part and its inner so called unconscious part. It is the search for contact with the inner, the nucleus of the psyche, that is the real province of the Work. This is well represented in the Hermetic work of progressive Initiation in which the Initiate is helped to go ever deeper into the inner reaches of his or her psychological self, with the objective of creating a unification of the outer and inner. The end result of this search or development is the Divine Marriage in which the outer or lower and the Higher or inner come into a creative relationship, a symbiosis .

Perhaps it is this original combination of two different organisms in a symbiotic relationship which is the basis of one of the strongest and important archetypal memories stored in the collective unconscious. The future for humanity would appear to depend upon the implementation of this memory, the bringing of it into conscious manifestation in order that as well as the individual physical bodies of all organisms, including us humans, being based upon complex symbiotic relationships, the relationships between individual humans will begin to be based on such symbiotic cooperation as the basis of our society. In this way we will make the enormous step from a society operating in the agonic mode, all actions being based on the expectation of reward, to a higher level society based on the hedonic mode, mutual help and cooperation. So is this the working of Higher Mind and some indication of its objective, of its big aim?

Such a concept is entirely in accord with the basic change in the Laws of World Creation and Maintenance outlined in Beelzebub's Tales. Because the abode of His Endlessness was found to be diminishing, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven were changed. The changes resulted in the Universe no longer being based on a closed non interactive system, but instead began to be based on an open interactive system so that energies could flow from one subsystem to another, some sub systems fulfilling the task of operating with higher energies which were transformed to lower energies, while other sub systems operated with lower energies which were transformed to higher energies. It is interesting that it was recognised that organic life is based on an open interactive system as long ago as 1912 by Alexander Bogdanov. He was a Russian medical researcher, philosopher and economist. be published his ideas in three volumes between 1912 and 1917 under the title of "Tektology'. He was so far in advance of his time that his work was little understood, but I am sure that Gurdjieff would have been aware of it. Bogdanov's work was eventually suppressed by Lenin, his ideas being considered as contrary to Marxism. His work in fact led as into the present advanced thinking and the Giai hypothesis that the Earth and the organic life it sustains is an open interactive symbiotic system . A very readable introduction to these concepts will be found in Fritjof Capra's latest book, "The Web of Life" .

In this way it is now recognised that all interacts. Hence the need to go from reductionist thinking to process thinking in order to better understand our reality which is an open system in which structure and process are interdependent.

So perhaps now we begin to have a feel for higher Mind, an entity existing out of space and time, but with connections to the lower mind of every individual human, influencing us all, an influence which generally we are unaware of. It is only when our lower mind is put into proper order that we can be used more effectively by Higher Mind for its greater purpose. It is at that stage that we begin to have an awareness of this greater entity, the Universal Mind, working its purpose out through us. It is then that we enter life more abundant, being conscious that we are a part of the interacting whole. The establishment of the bridge between our lower mind, both conscious and the unconscious part, the personal unconscious, and Higher Mind is the subject of the Work. If we are able to do the Work on ourselves, then we become what I call "The Man on the Bridge", symbolised by the God Janus, who looks both ways. It is interesting that one of the little known titles for the Pope is Pontifex Maximus, the Big Bridge.

So as a result of the practice of self observation our lower mind may slowly cease to be mechanically driven by external events and also, unconsciously by the promptings of Higher Mind so that there ensues a conscious symbiotic cooperation between the two, the Divine Marriage.

It is interesting that Aristotle was very concerned that his system of ethics should be practically used instead of many debating it in public as an ego trip. For that reason he called it by the Greek word Organon, which means a tool. And now we use the same root word for organic life. So organic life is a tool to be used by something higher for its purpose.

There would appear to have been a few humans who developed sufficiently to become in touch with Higher Mind. Many of these have left accounts of the various stages of their development for our use. This material has inevitably become distorted in many ways, degrading into a cult, the members of which took great efforts to destroy any who disagreed with their distorted presentation. To guard against such actions, it became usual for the knowledge only to be presented in a disguised form, the understanding of which needed the possession of the key to the interpretation of the code.

As examples of the use of writing and rituals in disguised form one can refer to Hermetisism, the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, Alchemy in Arabia, Greece, and Europe in the Middle Ages, the Rosicrucians, the Cathars, the Templars, the Druids, and even Christianity, including Esoteric Christianity.

In all these various presentations with their varying degrees of distortion, in my opinion we see clearly the working of the relatively new Intellectual mind with its binary mode of operation: go or stay, yes or no, good or bad. As a result our thinking is dominated by a polarisation of the outer and inner, the conscious and the unconscious, the black and the white, the Devil and God. Such polarisation is perhaps one of the biggest distortions we are encumbered with today. Such thinking has to be replaced by the application of the Law of Three, of the three forces which are universally present. These are not simply the good and bad forces, the forces of good and evil, but rather the Active Force, the Passive Force, and the Enabling Force. This last in the trinity of the Christian presentation is known as the Holy Ghost because as we are we are third force blind. A ghost is invisible to us.

So today we only have a set of beliefs and instructions for personal development in a disguised form. In some cases we have the disguised form based on a distortion of the original presentation. As far as ordinary people are concerned, the problem is that they take the disguised form for a literal presentation. In the West we are most familiar with the Christian presentation.

But we need a model to help us have a little understanding of how Higher Mind makes contact with the individual lower mind. Modern high speed photography has given us a truer understanding of the lightening flash. During a thunderstorm we now know that preceding the major flash of electrical energy from the thunder cloud to Earth, there is a much smaller electrical discharge from the Earth to the thunder cloud. This creates a conducting path by ionising the air, and it is by this conducting path that the major lightning flash is conducted. So the Work on ourselves, which only the individual can carry out, prepares the conducting path along which eventually Higher Mind, the Universal Mind, makes contact with the lower individual mind. The first of such contacts involves a great light which is awe inspiring, a light which is both within and without since in such moments there is no within or without. One in such moments experiences a reality which is more real than any experience of our ordinary reality. The analogy with the lightening flash is therefore most appropriate.

The situation is also well indicated by the aphorism:

"Oh thou who are trying to learn about the wonders of Love from the copy book of reason, I am very much afraid that you will never get the point!"